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Stephen Hawking has died

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Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#391

Post by ep103 »

intenseSpec wrote: post #295
drawkbox wrote: post #268

Sometimes the RNG of the Universe creates people with intelligence, innovation and insight that are one in a billion that make the world better than it was before in immense ways, Stephen Hawking is one of those mountain movers. People like Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Nikola Tesla and even Elon Musk today, that make us look up, innovate and think way out there, bring us together and remind us we are all on this plan…

Serious question, why is Elon Musk lumped in with Tesla, Hawking, and Sagan? Musk's achievements are assisted by the fact that he has tens of thousands of engineers at his companies and he gets credit for every one of their ideas, all their work, and all the life they give up for his dreams. He didn't found Paypal (his company merged with it), he didn't found Tesla (kicked out one of the original founders), and he di…

Because Musk is a self-made man who gathered a huge amount of wealth, and then multiple times risked it all in attempts to further the species, instead of just continuing to hoard wealth at the expense of the rest of us.

Tesla, Hawking, and Sagan are lumped together because they were brilliant scientists who's work furthered humanity. Those are attributes that we wish for others to emulate, so we put them on a pedestal.

Over the last few decades our society (usa) has been shifting slowly slightly further towards an everyone-for-themselves (and unequal) type of culture. So Elon's story, as described above, is another example of intelligence used in pursuit of human furtherment, that many would want similarly put on a pedestal for emulation.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#392

Post by thanatropism »

pvelagal wrote: post #377
mgolawala wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. Who will take his place? Who will be the Stephen Hawking of my children's generation? As a society we should work hard to find, celebrate and give a platform to the Stephen Hawking-s and the Carl Sagan-s of tomorrow. The impact of such "celebrity scientists" (I do not use that term pejoratively) is far greater than the measure of the work they have done. It is how they inspire an entire generation…

RIP Prof. Stephen Hawking. I am not very optimistic about another Stephen Hawking or an Einstein. How many of the best minds of our generation are attracted to Physics or Mathematics or Astronomy especially graduate level / Phds ? Some of the folks are getting into computer science but that doesnt help discoveries in cosmology.

Two words: Terry Tao.

I amateurishly evaluate Terry Tao on an order of a Poincaré. He's the actual "genius" thing concept person.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#393

Post by salgernon »

mgolawala wrote: post #331
joshumax wrote: post #45

For a second I just couldn't believe this was real. Stephen Hawking was one of those people that inspired me towards a career in science, as well as a pursuit of discovering what mysteries of the universe I could uncover within my (cosmically short) lifetime. He did this not through some major life-altering speech I heard from him (although his talks and lectures were quite interesting), or through some grand quote t…

I agree completely. Who will take his place? Who will be the Stephen Hawking of my children's generation? As a society we should work hard to find, celebrate and give a platform to the Stephen Hawking-s and the Carl Sagan-s of tomorrow. The impact of such "celebrity scientists" (I do not use that term pejoratively) is far greater than the measure of the work they have done. It is how they inspire an entire generation…

Jim Al-Khalili is an awesome science communicator - his BBC documentaries are inspiring and his enthusiasm contagious. The BBC in general has much more engaging science communicators than the US does. (Of course, Feynman lectures are still wonderful, and Phillip Morrison had some documentaries in the 80s that I remember fondly.)

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#394

Post by psyc »

cgriswald wrote: post #337
matte_black wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most of the universe’s history you did exist, but were dead, scattered into atoms all across space. The thing is, after a mere billions of years, you managed to consolidate into a form and became alive. Not a bad deal. But to be dead, is to wait a trillion years for something to happen, only for it to turn out at the end you have to wait a trillion years more, and then you have to continue this forever .

Are we talking about atoms when we are talking about ourselves? I don't think so. I am not the same collection of atoms from moment to moment. There may not be an atom in my entire body that is original to my body; and there are vastly more atoms in my body now than then. When I say "me" I don't really mean my body or even my brain, even if that's where "me" is. We are really talking about our consciousness. It's bee…

Regarding your first paragraph, I don't think that necessarily implies consciousness as an additional thing (not that consciousness doesn't require some explanation that is not forthcoming). You could be talking about a configuration of matter. Not an exact configuration, but one that would be recognizable to a powerful pattern matcher.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#396

Post by richardw »

mgolawala wrote: post #331
joshumax wrote: post #45

For a second I just couldn't believe this was real. Stephen Hawking was one of those people that inspired me towards a career in science, as well as a pursuit of discovering what mysteries of the universe I could uncover within my (cosmically short) lifetime. He did this not through some major life-altering speech I heard from him (although his talks and lectures were quite interesting), or through some grand quote t…

I agree completely. Who will take his place? Who will be the Stephen Hawking of my children's generation? As a society we should work hard to find, celebrate and give a platform to the Stephen Hawking-s and the Carl Sagan-s of tomorrow. The impact of such "celebrity scientists" (I do not use that term pejoratively) is far greater than the measure of the work they have done. It is how they inspire an entire generation…

Bryan Cox is great. Young (um...not old, maybe), knows how to be real, has proper cred as a scientist.

Edit: I mean come on! Dude played keyboard in a couple bands.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_(physicist)

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#397

Post by allpratik »

I always thought Stephen Hawking to be an epitome of what could science possibly do. The way he had used technology to remain alive as well work productively for so long is really mesmerising.

One of my close friend recently lost his entire vision due to optic nerve atrophy. And since then he is sort of lost and we used Stephen Hawking example many times to cheer him and overcome his new disability. And it works as well.

It hurts me a lot to realise now that one of the greatest dreamer of our time is simply gone now.

Sadly his brief period has come to an end.

RIP Stephen Hawking.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#398

Post by tardo99 »

intenseSpec wrote: post #295
drawkbox wrote: post #268

Sometimes the RNG of the Universe creates people with intelligence, innovation and insight that are one in a billion that make the world better than it was before in immense ways, Stephen Hawking is one of those mountain movers. People like Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Nikola Tesla and even Elon Musk today, that make us look up, innovate and think way out there, bring us together and remind us we are all on this plan…

Serious question, why is Elon Musk lumped in with Tesla, Hawking, and Sagan? Musk's achievements are assisted by the fact that he has tens of thousands of engineers at his companies and he gets credit for every one of their ideas, all their work, and all the life they give up for his dreams. He didn't found Paypal (his company merged with it), he didn't found Tesla (kicked out one of the original founders), and he di…

Hyperloop is a really, really dumb idea. It's funny you bring it up like it's a positive.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#399

Post by Florin_Andrei »

richardw wrote: post #396
mgolawala wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. Who will take his place? Who will be the Stephen Hawking of my children's generation? As a society we should work hard to find, celebrate and give a platform to the Stephen Hawking-s and the Carl Sagan-s of tomorrow. The impact of such "celebrity scientists" (I do not use that term pejoratively) is far greater than the measure of the work they have done. It is how they inspire an entire generation…

Bryan Cox is great. Young (um...not old, maybe), knows how to be real, has proper cred as a scientist. Edit: I mean come on! Dude played keyboard in a couple bands. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_(physicist)

His enthusiasm is awesome. He loves science, and you can very easily tell just by watching him.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#400

Post by jadbox »

latexr wrote: post #306
mikekchar wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not fear non-existence. For most of the history of the universe, I did not exist. I have considerable experience with that. Dying appears to be unpleasant, though.

In the context of your existing self, non-existing before and after existing are quite different thoughts . The first one is like you don’t remember it, like you don’t remember a lot in your life that you know happened. With the second one you’ll never have the experience of feeling you don’t remember it and you know that. It’s akin to the difference between one day you realising you forgot most of your life, and you…

I have a lecture to recommend: Shelly Kagan on Death by Yale. It's amazing and probably the most important course for anyone willing to open up to ideas around the notion of self and existence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2J7wSuFRl8&list=PLEA18FAF1A...
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